Hi Declan: In Zen and the Art the narrator traces through several phases so that the distinction gets increasingly refined and in his second book he abandons the classic/romantic distinction in favor of the static/Dynamic distinction. But I think that ultimately he's tracing the roots of a flaw in rationality itself and this flaw explains why the hipsters in general and John Sutherland in particular feel alienated by the squareness of intellectualism and the whole technological world that has grown out of that. That's what explains the sadness of the great funeral procession (rush hour traffic) and the incredible dullness and ugliness of rational efficiency. In one particularly telling passage of ZAMM he puts the question of Quality in terms of the realist doctrine that says a thing is "real" if the world can't function normally without it. He goes through a long list of things that would disappear or get really weird if there was no Quality. Art, comedy, and even sports would disappear. The grocery store would have only basic grains and ungraded meat, he says, and things like coffee, tea, wine and tobacco would disappear from the shelves. Only logic, science, philosophy and the other purely intellectual pursuits would be unchanged. Hmmm. Why is that, he wonders? That's pretty damn interesting. This observation is very much related to the flaw he hopes to repair. At this point he's seeing that our rationality is flawed BECAUSE it lacks Quality. And this is largely due to certain metaphysical assumptions about what counts as real, as scientific, as objectively true. He describes this flawed rationality as amoral scientific materialism, which says Quality is "just" subjective, an irrelevant emotional feeling that isn't considered to be quite real. Ultimately he wants to improve this situation by showing that intellect has its own kind of static quality and that so called "subjective" experience is just as real as rocks and rain. Ultimately he wants to integrate both sides into a whole and also integrate the two sides of his own personality and ZAMM ends with this personal integration. But like I said, in his second book he drops the classic/romantic thing and gives a more coherent picture of what he's worked out with the introduction of the static/Dynamic distinction. Static quality is also subdivided into four levels based on the evolution of the universe and in this full blown metaphysics of Quality (MOQ) there is nothing that is not Quality. Oh, and that cutting edge of experience at the front of the train remains a pretty key concept in LILA. That's Dynamic Quality, the pre-conceptual, pre-verbal experience from which everything else is derived. This is the mystical reality at the front edge of all experience, of direct everyday experience.
dmb ---------------------------------------- > Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:13:06 +0100 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: [MD] Romantic/Classic knowledge vs quality > > Hello > > In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig spends a lot of > time discussing romantic and classic knowledge/intelligence. Im not > sure how Id summarize his main message on them though: that both are > equally good, and when one (or peoples) neglects one and emphasises > the other too much, its a bad thing. One should pursue both (equally). > What was it that the people in the traffic jam (with the empty > expressions) were lacking: not enough romantic knowledge, and too much > classic? > > Am I missing something? > > Im even more uncertain how he relates Romantic/Classic knowledge to > the idea of "quality" that he develops. Is he saying that romantic > intelligence/knowledge is that which first recognises quality (or was > that some other "sense"). And somewhat later the classic knowledge can > be used to develop/apply this quality? If I recall correctly, in the > railroad analogy, the railway tracks were quality, the cutting edge of > the train was romantic knowledge (?) and the rest of the train was > classic knowledge? > > > Id be very grateful for any clarifications. > > Best Wishes, > Declan > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_allup_howitworks_012009 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
